61 Phil.

HULL, J.:
Appellant was convicted in the Court of First Instance of Leyte of the crime
of homicide. On the night of the 3d of April in the barrio of Maya,
municipality of Abuyog, Province of Leyte, there was a dance in a private
house, and the deceased was the master of ceremonies at that dance. The
appellant insisted on dancing out of turn and was reproved by the deceased.
Appellant then went to the porch of the house and with his bolo began
cutting down the decorations. He descended into the yard of the house and
challenged everyone to a fight. Not attracting sufficient attention, he began
chopping at the bamboo trees and repeated his challenge for a fight.
The deceased, unarmed, started down the stairs, speaking to him in a
friendly manner, and as deceased had about reached the ground, appellant
struck at him with his bolo, inflicting a wound on his left arm, which was
described by the sanitary inspector on post mortemexamination as follows:
"A long incised wound located on the lower portion of the left arm directed
inwards downwards and extending as low as the anticubitai fossa and
cutting the inferior part of the biceps muscle, and the branches of the
brachial artery. It measured 3 inches long, 21/2 inches wide and 1 1/2
inches deep."
As deceased fell to the ground, appellant inflicted a slight wound in the
back and ran away from the scene of action.
The wound was seen and treated the next morning by the sanitary inspector
of Abuyog, but the deceased remained in the care of a local "curandero".
This treatment failed to stop the hemorrhage, and the deceased died on the
15th of April, 1934.
The theory of the defense was that appellant was behaving at the dance,
that the deceased was the aggressor, that he struck him on the dance floor
with a cane, and that when appellant ran from the house, deceased followed
him about 200 yards until they came to a creek and appellant could not
retreat any further, and that when being attacked by the deceased with a
cane and a bolo, he succeeded in wrenching the bolo from the hands of the
deceased and in self-defense inflicted the wound.
While there is testimony to the above effect, the witnesses for the defense
were not believed by the trial court, and the testimony to that effect does
not read as clear and convincing as does that of the witnesses for the
prosecution.
The attorney de oficio urges that appellant did not intend to commit as
serious a wound as was inflicted but struck only in the dark and in self-
defense.
It is clear that there is no element of self-defense in the case and that
appellant was the aggressor. When one resorts to the use of a lethal weapon
and strikes another with the force that must have been used in this case, it
must be presumed that he realizes the natural consequences of his act.
It is also contended by the attorney for the appellant that if the deceased
had secured proper surgical treatment, the wound would not have been
fatal. In the outlying barrio in which this assault took place, proper modern
surgical service is not available.
The general rule is "* * * that he who inflicts the injury is not relieved of
responsibility if the wound inflicted is dangerous, that is, calculated to
destroy or endanger life, even though the immediate cause of the death was
erroneous or unskillful medical or surgical treatment * * *." (29 C. J., 1081,
and the numerous cases there cited.)
This court in the case of United States vs. Escalona (12 Phil., 54), following a
decision of the Supreme Court of Spain, adopted the same rule.
Therefore this contention of appellant must be held to be without merit.
During the trial, counsel for the defense asked several questions as to the
character and habits of the deceased, but the court sustained the objections
of the fiscal as to the propriety of such questions. Appellant urges that this
was prejudicial error. That such questions were relevant to the issue then in
question is not obvious. It is not necessary to pass upon the merits of this
contention, as such questions were not insisted upon at the trial, and no
exception was taken to the rulings of the court.
Fixing the period of confinement at six years and on day of prision mayor to
fourteen years, eight months, and one day of reclusion temporal, the
judgment appealed from as thus modified is affirmed. No expression as to
costs. So ordered.